The present invention relates to an apparatus for transposing address-bearing sorted goods into an ordered sequence according to a predetermined order of possible addresses, starting with at least two partial sequences in which the sorted goods are ordered according to the predetermined order, a method using the apparatus, as well as the use of an apparatus of this type for sorting of mail pieces having addresses in form of mailing addresses.
Before mail pieces are delivered by a mail carrier, these mail pieces are usually sorted at the post offices responsible for a postal district including the individual delivery areas of the postal district, where the mail pieces are then delivered by the mail carrier responsible for this delivery area.
In order to speed up delivery, the respective mail carrier generally sorts the mail pieces to be delivered in his delivery area, based on the mailing addresses and his carrier route. For this purpose, the individual mail pieces are sorted in accordance with the order of the delivery addresses along the carrier route.
This process is rather time-consuming and expensive and has to be completed before the mail pieces are actually delivered. Consequently, several postal authorities have started to provide special rates for large customers, such as mailers of newspapers, magazines, catalogues and the like, if they presort the mail pieces in advance according to the route of the respective mail carrier in order to facilitate and accelerate processing of mail before the mail delivered by the mail carrier.
However, the mail still has to be sorted by the mail carrier if two or more stacks of mail pieces which are already presorted, have to be processed for sorting.
With the foregoing disadvantages of the state of the art in mind, it is the object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for accelerating processing of several already presorted partial sequences of sorted goods which are supplied, for example, in the form of stacks, in particular mail pieces, and to describe a method using such apparatus.